32 years after Chernobyl, next up, a Chernobyl on ice?

32 years ago, the world’s largest civil nuclear accident contaminated large swaths of Europe.

This generation may no longer remember that for a few months spinach and other green vegetables had to be destroyed in countries like the Netherlands and Germany, that cows all over Europe needed to be kept in stables and milk taken out of consumption — and that for more than two decades, reindeer in Lapland, sheep in the English Lake District and wild boar in the German Schwarzwald had to be slaughtered because of high radioactive contamination.

In the countries that took the biggest hit — Belarus, Ukraine and Russia — hundreds of square kilometres are still too polluted for people to return, and several million people in a wider circle continue to have to accept radioactive contamination as a daily risk. At the site of the catastrophe, the international community only last year sufficiently covered the exploded reactor to enable the start of clean-up work — which requires technology we do not yet have. Since the 26th of April, 1986, we know from direct experience that there are severe risks attached to nuclear power.

In the coming weeks, Russian nuclear moloch Rosatom plans to move the world’s first designated floating nuclear power plant, the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’, from St. Petersburg through the Baltic Sea and around Norway to Murmansk. In Murmansk, it will be loaded with nuclear fuel and tested at a few kilometres distance from nearly 300-thousand inhabitants.

Originally, Rosatom planned to load fuel and test the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ in the very centre of St. Petersburg, 2.3 kilometres from the famous St. Isaac Cathedral.

What could possibly go wrong?

This caused a plaintive whine from the Russian nuclear regulator, Rostechnadzor, but because of a hole in Russian nuclear law, inspectors still don’t have full access or a mandate to criticise the Lomonosov. Only a petition by twelve-thousand St.Petersburg citizens, questions in the city’s legislative assembly and major concerns from Baltic Sea countries about transporting two reactors filled with irradiated fuel, without its own propulsion, along their rocky coasts, caused Rosatom to use some common sense and shift loading plans to a less densely populated area.

Once loaded with fuel and tested, the ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ will be towed next year 5000 kilometres along the — because of climate change, now ice-free — Northern Sea Route to the tiny port of Pevek in the far North-Eastern region of Chukotka. There, it will provide the 5000 strong population and its port and coal mines with 70 MW of electricity.

The ‘Akademik Lomonosov’ is to be the first of a fleet of floating nuclear power stations to be stationed in the Russian Arctic. Rosatom recently received the mandate to manage all shipping and development along the Northern Sea Route. These floating nuclear plants need to deliver the energy to dig for more climate-destroying fossil fuels.

And from there, dystopian science-fiction knows no borders. In 1995, Rosatom engineers proposed floating nuclear power stations for electricity production and desalination in other parts of the world as well. Think remote islands in Indonesia and the Philippines.

If this development is not stopped, the next nuclear catastrophe could well be a Chernobyl on ice or a Chernobyl on-the-rocks. Share this blog to show the world you know that this is a bad idea.

Jan Haverkamp is the expert consultant on nuclear energy for Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe.

Rashid Alimov is the coordinator of the Greenpeace Russia anti-nuclear project.

Comments

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Discussion

bonjour Jan and Rashid - the Akademik Lomonosov is not the first floating nuclear plant - do you remember the USA-build STURGIS nuclear plant, on the Panama Canal in 1968 .... In june 2017, the STURGIS project team has successfully removed the Reactor Pressure Vessel — a major component of the U.S. Army’s MH-1A reactor aboard the Nuclear Floating Barge.

Dear François, thank you for a very good comment! "Akademik Lomonosov" is the first industrially built by design as a commercial power plant.
The US Sturgis or MH-1A, was not specifically designed for that purpose: it was an old Liberty ship on which a reactor was installed. And it was not a real success. It functioned only 7 years in the Panama Canal zone, was then mothballed, damaged by storm, stored and largely forgotten for 38 years.

The Akademik Lomonosov is the first floating nuclear power plant specially designed for the purpose. The Sturgis was an existing (defunct) Liberty ship that was then equipped with an existing nuclear reactor. And it was not really a success. It only was used for 7 years in the Panama Canal zone. After repatriation to the US it was layed-up, but it took until 2011 before decommissioning was started, and, as you noticed, it took six years before the reactor could be removed. For me, the Sturgis is a clear illustration that floating nuclear power stations are as problematic as conventional land-based nuclear power station with some extra problems on top. A fundamental bad idea.

I recently heard that some reactor at Kola nuclear-plant will last longer than initially scheduled, with a lifetime pushed up to 60 years for one WER-440 reactor. Kola nuclear plant is providing electricity for Murmansk and other nearby "closed" cities. Are we aware of other reactors with such a long lifespan ? in USA ? in France ?

These are four VVER 440/230 reactors. In 1992, this reactor type was deemed by the G7 in Münich not to be upgradable to a satisfactory safety level, Germany closed its (GDR) Greifswald reactors already in 1990, and during their accession into the EU, Bulgaria and Slovakia closed their VVER 440/230 reactors. Longer operaation of such reactors is in my eyes irresponsible.
The world's oldest reactor is the Swiss Beznau reactor with 48 years of operation.